Cracked Song for Dirty Boots - rushing into deep freeze, head for wherefore & hither to, the long yaw of yonder

Moi, Ol' Squint - Keene forest aft. April 28, 2025

This selfie, more like schlep-fe (fie foe fumb), was took at the end, last full day,, of my early "Keene cleaning"( n Keene, NY) aka "spring cleaning" of psyche and withers nether or other - clover blossoms not yet pointil-listas in ice and snow-pressed -canvas-beige fields.

I yield, nay, I brake, for such fields, what surrounds them there, tall mountains and the ceaseless slurrrrr of spruce and fir forest. Would that I were there now for Autumn color but leaves are down already, pretty much, 

and wind with those countless leaves does add rattle to the slurrrr.

I have stood long still, cane-leaning, into sound, 

full ground swell in Pleistocene song.

Shall too soon be 'lithic' myself, right eye in what appears to be in permanent squint, which is the new name for my elder-ing self, shelf life not yet expired but close, a smudge-smear over that year ahead when/then (it's) ashes to ashes (down to that), no more need for socks and such, no more spitting into the wind for luck or lurch.

"Perched", say, 

whilst I can.

So unfair it is that just now, only past 10 years or so, am I able to be still, to be present-er, a very real arrival (believe you me), and the hitch-bitch of it is now I have to be smudged, un-here'd, ears for thunder no more, nor trees falling; up in high mounts such as these, very old, their ongoing tympani of crack-snaps, entire length of dead or dying trees sundering.  

Satisfying to hear, rare to see, don't wanna get too close but's no known time clock for trees as there is naught for my knees, I'll vouch. The crouch and lean does covey a tick and tock indicating clock wobble and the waning. They, trees, not knees, fall at mysterious appointed times which, down and grounded, go into mulch mode, decay-alchemy in layered weathered phases. That's for me, sockless, formless, but fast to ashes hopeful enough to add a thimble of nutrients for the ever unfolding, yes, overused word, so sue me,

PAGEANT.

(tipping my hat but not my tea cup to poet James Merrill here).

Now's rushing into deep freeze, these woods behind me (in the pic). Bears now caved or pert near. 

In winter there I freely wander, more like stagger, slip, slide on ice (frozen snow in dunes) but no need for eyes and ears out for bears. Coyotes on the other hand, they're shy but curious, and hungry. I swear I've heard the herd collective cur stomach rumble, and loud. Rare to hear. But a most unpronounced of Creator's miracle of creation by speech, rather, sound, and animal tremolo distempers the rare two leggèd hearer aka "nearer my God (or that which the name evokes) to thee" aka "look busy" or, rather, shape shift borrowing "coyote trickster" medicine (powers) and blend in with the scenery, snow, stone, tree....just, please, don't eat me tho I am New York deli fed and smell like another name for God, GARLIC.

I've been stalked by one 'yoté I named Munch (after the painter, Edvard of Norway) since he, 'yoté, not the painter, just to be clear even if one is a'squint in one eye ot t'other, said bedraggled yoté apparently had been hard hit by a vehicle and had his jaw broken which left its mouth ope't into that famous "Scream" and one hip was wopper-jawed too (meaning "akimbo-ed" in Appalachian mounts tongue).

This encounter was in covid year 2020, months of solo wandering in tundra (just to sound wilderness-ish, but it was indeed though 9N divided chaos with it's paved order, Munch and me both seemed to be conjoined from the sloppy braid of our paw prints be-dappled, dung on the side (not mine, too damned cold to squat tho sometimes urged) in snow.  

I'd leave some night offerings as did the owner of the land, of leftovers, bones, and such, hers for the pack, mine for patient Munch who would wait his turn, had to "for he was slow and wary" as he should be with that pack of mean bastards who cut him no slack (as also life had not so cut) - Faltered, he, fr'ever, Fated, but not fatally. Not fair. 

But as to fairness -

FAT CHANCE!

I would some times coo long and low and slow to soothe the scrawn' wag (wag of which he couldn't). One day found myself calling him Cousin. So, further named, he became Cousin Munch, a living haint, a Geechee Gullah word from my home state which I disowned gladly as it was none too kind to me but for the grace of nearby woods, a lake, ponds, natural springs wherein I could duck and cover/recover some sense of safety and "what for" enough to rough it till I could limber outta psychic limbo and head for wherefore and hither to, the long yawn of yonder, anywhere but there where I bid and did my time -

skeee--daddled,

plead "I WAS FRAMED!" to the night sky in the front field, my boy's flashlight signaling

SOS SOS SOS
SOS SOS SOS

remorse code to what ever-who might appear outta stars and retrieve me, 

me relieve too too fed on fear and grief.

But no pity. No pity.
Done with that.

I take in Cousin's countenance and save pity, right use of the word, for him. I've had four squares and can still "cut a rug" when the chance comes to do so. I'm good. Now I'm good, and over it. Tis blistery s'all. Noone spared. So as a coot and pain in the ass retired moonshiner in Carolina hollar used to say some 40 years ago,

"Lord love a duck."

Which is fun to say.

And it worked. Rather, the cooing forth at, getting back to, Munch, hunched, hunkered, hang-dogged, come by it honestly, like me but recovered and bearing my own tale with wider vantage in and out, in or was, and now, see it's all a kind of weather.

So, I hope Munch's still ambling about but didn't we make a good pair, each respecting our careful distances what allowed some company and kinship in Duende Gulch, a hide away where we'd both stand, pause and be present to each other. Squint me and Cousin Munch, now kin, some kinder space between to make meaning for me, more of it, and whatever the equivalent or near to for the 'yoté pilgrim haint, head permanently down, still, I hope, around Spruce Hill, Mount Marcy peak just peeking over Hurricane ridge, keeping watch overall Its terrain 360 around, between, and below

Come January, then, I hope to return. Left eye aiming to see Cousin. Meanwhile, singing this cracked song with lent crow throat what used to carry a tune:

Don't Let Me Come Home A Stranger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk-G3ht8d40&list=RDsk-G3ht8d40&start_radio=1

**

O stand radiant-starred late afternoon

O stained stark shadows' black frieze 


astonished stooped man

time's wee piss-boy 

damp bunk-bed mattress fears


O stand glazed from edges 

gaze to bark

vine maps of escape


Iron shadows

impress long into 

wet pit 


sun shards

spy glass 

throat sore


Cracked song for dirty boots

* * * *

O lost, and by the wind grieved,,

ghost, come back again.

— Thomas Wolfe

Between the Rain and Scarlotti's "Stabat Mater" and John Coltrane's Everything - September 23, 2023 Notes

Here's a brash Shabbas too-full-in prayer, 

pigeon and dove wars going on other side 

of drapes, they random roo, tandem chorus,

full craw spat, so scat my aged but still high fidelics. 

Between the rain Scarlotti "Stabat Mater" and Coltrane, two wildly different stratospheres, I veer once again to espresso pot, cast lots for what remains of sacred dregs, boil an egg, address insistent closed curtains pleading outer darkness OK with me believing with my ears, in harmony, in Coltrane's primacy of breath and brass.

Good start to the weekend, a titch of lonely but not really since "I have been faithful to thee, Cynara [Ernest Dowson]." I have re-sewn the decades old wine dark satin housecoat redeemed from thrift near a sacred mountain known only to itself (and to me -shhhhh) that it is sacred. There's still some sheen to the old satin. Not sheen. What's the word? Yeah, rather, 'patina' with pinot noir notes. Old bones remembering to be gay.

Second cup. I gloat. Scarlatti turns to Pergolesi, more violins than the first Stabat of the afternoon. Radio, remember that? D.J. plays quilts of Trane. Volume up, volume down. Lean in to hear. Lean back to mercy ears whelmed, Coltrane fingers ever over the helm. Sense whence such, his furrowed look, have laid down all scores but one (but he'll never tell yet still we listen...hints about).

Out of heavy cream for ever blacker brew, but no dearth of sound.

A peek of Autumn color, so much depends on, even or especially, W. C. Williams's spokes and strokes, the window slicked tho dinged, lone ginkgo golden tresses in honor of the Holy Child of Hamlet, NC. below the grayed out pigeons, the consistent doves, holy too, in retreat to ledge and iron across the street, other windows. A truce at last. Must be there's a crow cross the street eyeballing thinking lunch.

**

What the window does, rain, the street and the district houses, my humble Canon camera greatly battered, years old, flatters, is 'Ash Can meets some bereted French 19th Century 'school' or painter tobacco stained, slow poison in the tints back then used (O Vincent) , makes one wonder if they, all or most, were in altered states from the chemicals in the tubes ginning veins, organs, brains, so they, literally painted what they were seeing from within, all that literal alchemical combustion of optics, nerves, lungs pulling heavy for air, another draw from the pipe or fag. Bless them each, leaving their scrim for us to gaze. Our eyes are the better for them.

Enough.

Words of an old teacher come to mind, a kind man, a bit severe, sere, clear as all raw day, he'd remind then, would do so now,

Don't try so hard.

Wait. Listen. 

Measure arrives.

"Exploding beepers, finders weepers so call in the stretchers" - On Pathological Religion of a Pathological Species One Year After the O So Clever Murders (What a good boy am I!) & More Without End

New York Times headline of September 18, 2024 — O the Horror, the Horror:

Israeli's Pager Attack Was a Tactical Success Without a Strategic Goal, Analysts Say

By targeting so many pagers at the same time, Israel deomonstrated technical prowess and partly restored the aura of its intelligence agencies. But its long-term inttent is unclear.

Read article here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-pager-attack.html

Youtube video of article content:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU94A1vTpDk

Reprise today of my Facebook post of September 19, 2024 regarding the horrors of Evil's equal opportunity employer aka there's not even a thin line between evil and evil - the winners are losers but the blood and land thirsty deities "locally" flavored but still their believers believe theirs is the one and only True and Absolute over all "false" others. I've can't. Not even. But call it cant or rant, I am more than spent, drained, wiped, "smithered" myself into Godot like babble since reason, rationality, empathy is, has, lost to Nature, to inHUMANE Nature. Enough. Read on below if you can stomach the fact that Israel is slaughtering without check Palestinians civilians.

Iraqi girl at checkpoint. NT Times photo: "In January 2005, Chris Hondros captured this picture of 5-year-old Samar Hassan after US troops had accidentally killed her parents at a checkpoint in the Iraqi town of Tal-Afar....Hondros was killed in 2011 while covering the Libyan Revolution." See article here (click).

My response on the day of the exploding beepers event and the Times article:

Exploding beepers, finders weepers so call in the stretchers, the mop buckets, the human smithers-sweepers, the rollers of fine hand held or vested mortars and such cuz rival Chosen Ones, each Dehumanized Other is THE INFIDEL (and we ain't), Holy Wars lead to hell on earth...for this, I guess, the old old gory story, "saviors" are given birth to and we can see how effective that has been and ever shall be aka GORE and WAR, blood splatter collateral without end.....and just view the absurd, some, contending clowns (tricksters) in America now show that there is no bottom to how low can we as a specious species can go viz

Question: How low is enough? a lot lower into infinity of lower...apparently. All our human cleverness (or techne, devices) used to lower and lower and lower and lower and maim and kill and terrorize far and near, near and far - is that drone nice, is this archaic but trickster hand held device a convenience for our side to destroy the other side (apparently so)? If the murderous ones on both sides kill each other off then fair trade but collateral murders seem to be the price of the deemed to be necessary ticket straight to ancient yet ever TRENDING hell.

The only REAL deity I can see globally is the Trickster up to no good, IT of many names and cultural/regional flavors - Mercury, Loki, Heyeoka, Coyote, Kokopelli, Elegbara, Papa Legba, Elegua, Nanabojo, even Br'er Rabbit, and on and on....

Of course, we can use names of the current crop, the Yeti clearly being a very very all too effective trickster - good news is that Trickster is subject to its own medicine, Tricked by Itself aka hoisted on its own petard. "Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy" (from movie, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsai) Across the Eighth Dimension)...but, perhaps I'm about to do it too, trickster myself, offer my head on a plate (no Bathsheba me, but) viz this bellow below but - compelled into the breach, or is it "into the breech" (which can mean, alas, buttocks, ass, the backside), so I'll just say (in order to white wash 'breech') INTO THE BLEACH!! the chloro-x nearby for sedation through the obdurate un-endurance —

[MY OWN PRIVATE OP ED - IDAHO or rather, truthfully - I DUNNO]

EXPLODING BEEPERS. Penultimate. Not quite but inevitably soon here cuz it's in our laps, in our hands, in our devices and such tools put to destructive deadly purposes, consciously so aks the nihilism of Western Religion (and the varietals ongoingly offered), even after the catastrophe of the 20th century, the nihilism is a psychic (archetypal) insistency within Western theology/cosmology and its variations its psychopathic self. Granted, its a global condition, global in that humans are, duh but, everywhere and wherever humans are is/are hubris (we-are-gods or we-are-gods-chosen or or or various dangerous inflated delusions that presume and assume TOP DOG (GOD) <> LOW DOG (GOD) and, natuch, "OUR GOD (DOG) is best so get with the program (or pogrom) or else" - alas, nothing new under the sun. God and humans are just no fun at allllllllll. Appalling. The fun is in the bitter irony of the contradictory beings we are, that life is, the power and the glory, the gun powder and the gory, meanwhile orphans are made and are also killed. Millions wipes out along with countless other beings given no mind to at all.

Just the attention given to inventions of weapons, hand held ones, disguised as convenience and everyday, routine objects, belies evil which makes us, humans, desperate, 

aka saurian aka reptilian.

The fantasy, understandable one, of "escape from evil" does not resolve evil which in animal/nature world is not evil but just cruel cold brutal Nature.

But the tragic/noble/tragic conundrum of homo scrape-ians, is that we must bear Nature in and as us consciously. Again, the fantasy is that knowledge will overcome the animal, science or religion promises transcendence ultimately, transformation into transfiguration into some thing ultimately NOT human, creaturely at all but made of Light or some minutely refined, sublime energy that is all consciousness.

FAT ChANCE. alas but get real. And, as ever, deal.

But how?

"A problem is not solved on the level of the problem." - Albert Einstein

A long discredited guru in the '70's, out of India (of course) and, smelling money and chelas and wrist watches and cars and entranced men and women, flew into the West

(in planes, not on magic carpet rides - pop music sang of such carpets MUCH aka the group Steppenwolf, as well as the Bloody Moods, I mean, the Moody Blues, whom I LOVED! still do, but but but)

into spiritually empty and desperate and gullible America, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the one that the Beatles blinked with (tho George found home there, good for him), did say something that bears out to be accurate, would often quote Albert Einstein:

"A problem is not solved at/on the level of the problem."

Which is evident when enduring the yesterday's horrors from far way (Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and on and on) but news and video footage for replay only a click on a device away.

Unless and until humanity wakes up to the very dark side of their "deities" and their adherents (too often "sanctioned sanctimonious mobs" with "scriptural" Good Housekeeping Seals (especially in the West), and unless and until humanity recognizes and owns up to the fact (that bears out via evidence, not verses promising otherly from assorted "sacred books") that their deity has a very evil side (what Job and Jesus confronted head on in sacred (move the "a" in the word to the right of the "c" and you get what is working in the word sacred - and many adherents quote from their books much about "fear of the Lord" "fear of a God of retribution"....

The religions themselves ARE the problem and religions are products of humans so.....you do the figurin' and then get to reconfiguring personally, do YOUR homework, inner homework (aka self reflection, examination, etc. ask and sit with the very hard questions beyond what's for dinner, can I pay the rent, can I get laid, will I be famous, et. al), and outwardly, read, study, go deeply into the records for thousands of years now that humans have recorded from scratched bones, carved rocks, to cave paintings and conscious arrangement of bear and other bones in deepest recesses keeping while early ancestors acknowledge awareness of something greater, some awful mystery, is living us, is living life and this is, so far, the best we can do - admit to and acknowledge the "something is doing something we know not what but it is doing something" larger than our little selves but

WE CAN TRY.

No promises, though.

Fingers crossed (as are all religions - fingers crossed - even poor Job having to contend with God's revelation of his Evil side, and Job had to BEAR, as do we, THAT terrible reality as do we have to bear that ongoingly terrible vision of not only the dark side of God but of ourselves.

I posted earlier today this quote which is good too to end on but to again and again and again begin on...

Let's read that again: "Let those who sail the sea know its dangers."

Beyond graduate level LIFE course but, yeah, gonna be exposed to it, the dangers, either way so blink and nod but at some point at appointed by greater than our own intentions or positive thoughts or affirmations and all that magical thinking, one must look at and bear the QUESTION, and as Rilke says, at least try "live the question" but I add the word, "consciously" - consciously live the question(s) for as Carl Jung pointed out, as did W. H. Auden -

the questions actually LIVE US -

Jung - the archetypes (energies inherent in psyche) live us, the myths live us - not the other way around - we don't live the myths, the archetypes, they are living us and in us.

Auden - We are lived by forces greater than ourselves.

Both men are saying the same thing.

But human hubris is such that we believe that WE individually are the captains of our ships, our souls, our souls (granted, an easy error since egos are no accident but that a lecture for another time, if ever). This hubris assigned ego primacy when, shhhhhhh, it is not true though, again, tis in the mix of psyche energetic play/alchemy/sway but greatly ego-inflated America and the New Age - a current vapid scourge but I will forego the lecture but must say BEWARE the dissociative/bypassing muddle hodge podge coddled hatchling - would have us fall for the massive ego inflation of god-almightiness.

Here I go. Leaping in. Holding my nose (but NOT crossing my fingers on my dominant left hand 

— into the BLEACH

"because we are partial beings who yearn for total states."—Michael Eigen

Distant cousins, 

we're made more close by 
sorrow. Time's a borrowed 
longing, reaches us each to 
each - or yours to mine, for 
nowhere now we are but 
within, perhaps, merely a 
conceit but, I in you and 
you in vague, yes, me, a 
guess, a venality, vanity 
being a human trait common, 
quite. It is still a trace to 
be, to convene congenially.

God damn the West its Deity

otherness /interiority
loneliness / self-ignorance
recitation / quietism
salve / balm

the blank stare
the cancelled look

does it go
does fire it know

so goes the banter
so goes the way
of what is the going
away or the returning 
or the first-arrived

when is the done 
actually over? 

[shrugs]

another turned page

Certainty — a toad does not say what it knows

still the valid address

'shall and will' and 'spill my beans'
the very few that are left

bereft? sure I am
cleft? yes

twained? drained mostly - acedia [ah-che-dia = dryness]

the letting 
go of even a leg up 
in the world because being
as it is known the way we know it 

has 
no leg by which to balance 

or can't like a candled book
or a cancelled look
dance upon a sill, 

or chance upon that which may
be withstood to stand 

upon though 

stand we will 
and must and, 

flutter-foot, alight, 

so many winged 
ones addressing 

the old and present 
wounds -

latencies of disintegration

ancient slopes of containment

gnomic marginalia

apophatic aphasias 

inclement hallelujahs trace

the grace-notes of reprieve 

Eintonces toujourrs

and yours, mon ami,

mon frere, je fini.,

off to rhyme with

fire and sirelings

New classical music (Swesiish composers):

1 ALFVEN Gustavus Adolphus II Suite Op. 49  (Elegy)

2 BLOMDAHL Andante (Pastoral Suite)

3 STENHAMMAR Sången (Cantata), Op 44; Mellanspel (Interlude)

4 LARSSON Romance (Pastoral Suite, Op 19) 

5 ATTERBERG Adagio (Symphony No 6 op. 31 in C major)

6 BERWALD Adagio. Scherzo, Allegro assai. Adagio (Symphony No. 3 in C Major )

7 PETERSON-BERGER Frösöblomster (Frösö flowers) Op.16, Häfte 1.2 Sommarsång (Book 1.2, Summer Song)

8 LIDHOLM Allegro. Molto adagio, espressivo. Coda, Allegro (Music for strings)

https://archive.org/details/Vol1165

***

[NOTE: All photos but for the New York Times photo at the top are by Warren Falcon. Do not use without his permission. Click on photos to enlarge]

Buddha, NOT Trump Nihilist Tumor In Thief - A Fire Sermon (not really, but Buddha's sermon applies - I Ching Night of POTUS Election Results 2024

Umbrella/Ambient tone setting for what is below:

Edward Edinger (see fuller quote at bottom of this text:  

"Humanity needs a world of symbols as well as a world of signs.  A sign is a token of meaning that stands for a known entity. By this definition, language is a system of signs, not symbols.  A symbol, on the other hand, is an image or representation which points to something essentially unknown, a mystery.  A sign communicates abstract, objective meaning whereas a symbol conveys, living subjective meaning.  A symbol has a subjective dynamism which exerts a powerful attraction and fascination on the individual.  It is a living organic entity which acts as a releaser and transformer of psychic energy.  We can thus say a sign is dead, but a symbol is alive."

Eternity or Death and Rebirth

*

A symbol of utter ASS-HOLENESS 

or N-ARSE-CISISM..PERIOD.

I could use a few tabs of unadulterated LSD from early 60's right now. But given the nightmare perpetually unfolding, of MAGA NAZIS and a barely checked TRUMP, EXHIBIT A of Pathological N-ARSE-WHOLENESS, and the destruction he's done in 8 months and intending to do much more...NOPE....won't do a tab of acid now as I am too. wide eyed in terror and more to come (his "divine retribution" tour, not even a tour but a terminal active occasion in time as his cypher self, a no self, cannot even be content with maximum damage and destruction while he devours himself like a demonic OUROBOROS (ponounced "your-boros"). 

Play this at the slower speed while watching the dog-trancing video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnJM_jC7j_4

Dog-trancing - I'll have what they are having!

https://www.facebook.com/reel/107583468801531

Floor or Plank Ching at DIA Beacon Museum 2017

I Ching Hexagrams After POTUS (S)Election 2024 - Splitting Apart

The dreadful shock of Trump "winning" ( we know he cheated) the election was confirmed to me when in despair I consulted the Taoist oracle of the I Ching and got Hexagram 23 aptly named "Spitting Apart" (I asked "What will result from Trump being president of USA again?"), so just reading the title of the Hexagram confirmed what I knew, what we all knew (the Bastard had said as much during the campaign). The first line re: the meaning of this hexagram says it directly:

"It does not further one to go anywhere" [which is what I wanted to do aka leave the country, and still very much DO want to do]. Doubt and fear cause us to split from our path...." I think the hexagram was/is speaking to the USA, the collective....and/but just the name of the hexagram said, still says, what Trump and MAGA intend and are doing, splitting the nation apart, creating division, etc. Read the entire brief commentary at this link which will open to #23:

https://archive.org/details/guidetoiching0000anth/page/55/mode/1up

The accuracy of the hexagram, though, and further hexagrams that were bleak, as well, was, while terrifying/upsetting to greater upset, strangely comforting as in "OK, the Sage of the Tao de Ching "knows" and even this bullshit mutherfucker cannot escape the Tao (which means "WAY" - which references an inherent order including chaos (Trump's entire metier) is at work. FATE, a big word in Taoism, is a word used to say, "Greater forces are at work, greater than even Trump Itself, and best, so I was counseled that night and STILL, to KEEP STILL, everything changes and this too will change. Keeping Still basically says, "Wait. You cannot impact the forces at work now but time will come when action effects the needed change. Trump thinks he is the source of force but forces, say the Tao, say Carl Jung, says W. H. Auden ARE LIVING HIM. They, too, are living each and every, and they are living groups, regions, countries. SO, better to identify what forces are living you individually, and those living in the family, the community, the state, the country, etc. Tend to those forces, make them conscious and have a conscious relationship with them so as not to be just forced along with the delusion that the ego is godalmighty and uber alles and running your show. NOPE. YES?NO. BOTH/AND.

Tien Yi Ho ("Heaven") Evoke Kwan Yin 

Goddess of Mercy and Compassion

I Ching for Today and Ahead - Hexagram 61 - Inner Truth

Today's hexagram to go with this post, counsel to one and all, at least perhaps you, for dealing with the mad nation today today or for the up and coming weeks is #61 Inner Truth, first line of the commentary is a kind of sum of it but read the entire (short) commentary at the link in the the comment section below:

"Pigs and fishes. Good fortune." This hexagram is about dealing with evil in others though the power of inner truth.

"Pigs and fishes" refers to the stubborn qualities of a person's ego. The buildup of inner power, through clinging to what is right, must be very great to penetrate through."

Enough for now. Or too much so let's go for enough and less for less is more when our house, our national house is on fire (to be Buddhist for a brief moment viz. His Fire Sermon which is easy to sum, this is my sum:

"Folks, it's as if your are living in a burning house and don't know it (or are ignoring it with magical thinking that it is not real or will go away). But I tell you:

WAKE UP!(which is what "Buddha" the word/name means)!

"Get out of the burning house!!"

Kali's Dance:

https://archive.org/details/par016YellowAtmospheres-instabilemay112015/05_PAR016_Yellow_Atmospheres_-_Kalis_Dance_2015.mp3

What is this fire burning down the house?

Desire. What Freud helpfully for us now post postmoderns terms "DRIVES" as in instinct driven URGES. Deire (this is me, not Buddha) is what DRIVES capitalism. And drives are endless and never extinguished thus we have our acquisition/accumulation systems which now market desire every nano-second. This incessant pursuit, hunger, drive, urge can never be stationed thus the crazy fantasy of escape by turning a nation into an oligarchy. Even the oligarchs are not satisfied, are never fulfilled.

Suffer me just a bit more re: the above. For America, the problem (as I see it) is found in the Preamble to the Constitution itself viz

"the right to life liberty and pursuit of happiness."

Happiness IS the problem. The very word derives from "happen" which really is a blip, and event, changing from one second or moment to the next...instances and of course, the word "INSTANT, NOW NOW NOW, HERE HERE HERE". Happiness, the word, and the state of being "happy" is inherently BRIEF. It does not STAY. See the problem? the drives that drives us want, seek, SATIATION. SATISFACTION. Well,

FAT CHANCE.

BUT, I think the better word in the Preamble is

Contentment.

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Contentment.

Contentment, too, implies a process of trial and error, of long enough to know that one's contentments, the contents that bring about this inner state of filling enough, fades, no longer works....contentments can end in discontentment. Hopefully, adulthood and aging matures our relationship to contentment and their contents wisely (hard won wisdom) that grass withers, etc. and so one gets philosophical, patient, and the pursuits can turn inward, can be sought within.

I'll spare the lecture on Freud's short by accurate (as it stands - he/it needed Carl Jung to provide ballast and balance to Freud's accurate description of humans, what drives us, the search for cessation and satisfaction of/for our "discontents". Freud's major point is that the productions of civilization, art all kinds, architecture, knowledge, science, tools, technology, religions, sports, entertainment, and all the rest are born of our hunger, our desires, which do not fully assuage, satiate permanently - thus our discontent.

Thus Freud's title to a 44 page book with massive reorientation of and for the human "project" "goal" which is, indeed, contentment —

Civilization and Its Discontents.

Book can be read online for free at archive dot org (free to join.

Oh, Carl Jung's project and calling was to point out that civilization is born not only from human discontent but also that it is born of archetypal forces that shape and reshape human "productions of time", those forces are mysterious but reveal in myths and such...so I speak of, and AMEN Freud (his view from the neurotic Wasteland) AND know that Jung did not discount Freud's view so much as he discovered that civilization arrives/derives from depth dimensions which are the Myth- and Mys- (as in Mystic, as in Mystery),

So. Not either/or but rather both/and. Freud's view from where he stood and worked. Jung's view, too, from what "drove" him to his researches and discoveries from depths that are beneath the layer of the personal unconscious, the deeper layers Jung called the archetypal, the TRANSpersonal ("beyond"personal).

One more IMPORTANT note - that the I Ching, Tarot, Runes and other oracles partake of the transpersonal, archetypal layers which is the function of SYMBOLS aka symbols are not signs - most folks don't know this but I'll snot going into this here). Here is Jungian analyst and writer Edward F. Edinger clearly stating the difference between symbol and sign. You can impress your friends at cocktail parties and brunch. This excerpt is from his book, Ego and Archetype, Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche:

"Humanity needs a world of symbols as well as a world of signs.  A sign is a token of meaning that stands for a known entity. By this definition, language is a system of signs, not symbols.  A symbol, on the other hand, is an image or representation which points to something essentially unknown, a mystery.  A sign communicates abstract, objective meaning whereas a symbol conveys, living subjective meaning.  A symbol has a subjective dynamism which exerts a powerful attraction and fascination on the individual.  It is a living organic entity which acts as a releaser and transformer of psychic energy.  We can thus say a sign is dead, but a symbol is alive...Symbols are spontaneous products of the archetypal psyche.  One cannot manufacture a symbol, one can only discover it.  Symbols are carriers of psychic energy.  This is why it is proper to consider them as something alive.  They transmit to the ego, either consciously or unconsciously, life energy which supports, guides, and motivates the individual.  The archetypal psyche is constantly creating a steady stream of living symbolic imagery.  Ordinarily this stream of images is not consciously perceived except through dreams or through waking fantasy, when the conscious level of attention has been lowered.  However there is reason to believe that even in the full waking state this stream of symbols charged with effective energy continues to flow beyond the notice of the ego.  Symbols seep into the ego, causign it to identify with them and act them out unconsciously; or they spill out into the external environment via projections, causing the individual to become fascinated and involved with external objects and activities." —pages 109-110.

Enough..